


You Changed

by thecosmonaut



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Canon Compliant, F/F, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 05:25:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5900023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecosmonaut/pseuds/thecosmonaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“All your claws are gone, baby girl.” The other gem growled, the sound low in her throat. “Did they sand out your edges when they locked you away in that mirror?”</p>
<p>“They didn’t,” Lapis Lazuli retorted. “I escaped. You should have seen me. There was nothing smooth about that.”</p>
<p>----<br/>Lapis Lazuli deals with the emotional scars of imprisonment while trying to appease her tyrant of an ex girlfriend.</p>
<p>Takes place in between The Return and Jail Break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Changed

**Author's Note:**

> I found this on my PC,fixed it up, and I thought it was decent enough to post. Tell me what you think! Comments are always appreciated.

Jasper had grown.

 

Jasper had grown, or perhaps her own demeanor had simply shrunken, leaving her a mousey husk of who she once was. 

 

“All your claws are gone, baby girl.” The other gem growled, the sound low in her throat. “Did they sand out your edges when they locked you away in that mirror?”

 

“They didn’t,” Lapis Lazuli retorted. “I escaped. You should have seen me. There was nothing  _ smooth _ about that.”

 

Jasper grinned. Her golden, tiger eyes narrowed and she let out a rough chuckle. “I wish I could have been there. We could have cracked heads together. Just like the old days.” She slammed her fist into her open palm. Her orange helmet gleamed in the green light of the starship from between her legs, casting prisms against the walls. 

 

“We could have,” Lapis answered. Privately, she was left with feelings of doubt; nothing was like it had been in the old days.

 

Jasper turned back to her work. Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips as she polished her weapon with a rag soaked in oil. Jasper was not a gem who was meticulous, but when she bent down to run her big hands over her helmet, Lapis nearly believed she was. 

 

“I missed ya, you know?” Jasper said without looking up. “It’s been an awful long time since we’ve seen each other.”

 

“It has.”

 

“This, being here with you, feels just like it did ages ago.”

 

It didn’t, but Lapis did not speak.

 

“I kind of remember- I mean, I haven’t really stopped thinking about us.”

 

“Us?”

 

“Yeah, us back then and now.”

 

Lapis was uneasy. Jasper had never been this hesitant in her memories. She had seemed the  type of gem who rushed into stormy seas baring her teeth and thrashing her skull. Lapis had enjoyed that kind of behavior in her past; they both pretended they were too good for ambiguity, too proud to be meek and both tried to be forward in her own mannerisms. Perhaps this was a new trick... Everything had changed so much, why not Jasper?

 

“I don’t understand,” she said, slowly. 

 

Jasper scratched the back of her head. “We had a history together.” 

 

There came a faint feeling of warmth, a memory of a large, orange arm curled around her waist and a body pressed into her back. A hard nose dug into her scalp, and she could even faintly hear an _ I love you _ . Of course. How could she have forgotten? It made Lapis feel strange to remember, but even stranger was the feeling of emptiness that had accompanied the recollection. She had been alone for so long. To remember now, the sensation of touch, made her stomach churn. 

 

“I-I know,” she answered. She dug her fingers into the folds of her dress, now anxious. 

 

Jasper looked at her with surprise. 

 

“Hey, you okay?”

 

“I’m fine. Just, motion sick from the ship. That’s all.”

 

“Well, alright. Seeing you against just makes me think of the times we spent with each other before the war.”

 

“Jasper…” Lapis made a face. The Gem War, that’s right, that was the last time they had seen each other. Thinking about it made her ill to her core. 

 

Jasper had been older than her, even then. She wore her rank of Sergeant with pride, keeping all of the shiny medals upon her breast polished so that they shone brightly in the yellow sun of the solar system. Lapis Lazuli had been young, a Private as green as Earth spring. She had carelessly rushed into battle and had paid dearly for it. How eager they all were for glory, how  _ foolish _ . 

 

It had been so long since she had even thought of Jasper. 

 

Everything that had been her reality before she was stuck in the mirror now seemed to be a faint dream. Although she felt guilty to admit it, seeing Jasper after all these years wasn’t as so much relieving as it was exhausting. She had written off Jasper as a character in a life she had left. It was almost painful to have her thrust back back into relevancy. 

 

Jasper grunted. “You awake, Lapis?”

  
  


“Of course,” she answered. “I’m just thinking.”

 

“Thinking? ‘Bout what?”

 

“Us,” Lapis said, simply, and Jasper smiled. 

 

Her eyes drifted around the small, break room of the ship. It’s low, green ceiling nearly brushed the tips of Jasper’s wild tufts of hair when she stood standing, but for Lapis Lazuli, the chamber was large enough for comfort. She did not know if she was allowed to roam around the ship unattended, so she stayed put. Peridot had seemed displeased with the idea that Lapis would not be kept in the brig for their journey back to Earth, but Jasper had insisted. 

 

She had not properly thanked Jasper for saving her from imprisonment, but she doubted the other gem would understand. 

 

For someone as untamed as Jasper, the concept of imprisonment was unfathomable. The choking claustrophobia of a cell would be a foreign sensation to her, one entirely inappropriate. Trying to cage Jasper would be like trying to choke out the light from a supernova. She would thrash and scream and curse, but Lapis, well, Lapis had all but resigned herself to a life behind bars. That was before she met Steven, of course.

 

“Are you happy to be going back?” Jasper asked, and Lapis shook her head.

 

“Where’s that fire I remember?” Jasper looked up to meet Lapis Lazuli in the eyes, pausing from polishing her orange helmet. “Those Earthlings, the ‘Crystal Gems’ were the ones who held you captive. If I were you, I’d be ready to snap necks.” She grunted and turned back to her work. The big gem dipped her rag into the oil at her desk, bringing it up to smooth over her weapon. The orange crystalline structure shone, reflecting her own, small blue face off of it like a mirror. She didn’t like that.

 

Lapis stared at her feet. She drew her knees up to her chin and relaxed her back against the wall. “I am thankful,” she said. “For being out, I mean, and I’m thankful to Steven, for helping me.”

 

There came a sound of metal crashing against metal, and Lapis blanched, as if shot. Jasper stood above her, glowering with her crystalline nostrils flared. Her chair was thrown carelessly to the floor behind her, and she kicked it as she approached the blue gem.

 

“He didn’t do  _ anything _ , Lapis.” She said. Jasper’s tone was harsh. When she bent down to put her hands flat against the wall behind Lapis, the other gem nearly flinched. “You can’t tell them that he helped you.”

 

“Jasper...”

 

“He didn’t!”

 

Lapis shuddered. She looked away from the burning eyes of the bigger gem and stared at the floor. 

 

“I need you to understand me, if they know a gem traitor assisted you- Well… We’ll have to change the nature of this mission.”

 

“You already know he helped me,” Lapis answered, flatly. “Why don’t you throw me in the brig and call it a day. I’m sure you’ll get another medal to add to your collection,  _ commander _ .” 

 

“Because, it doesn’t have to be like that.” Jasper cupped her face with large, calloused fingers. When Lapis batted her hand away, she shrunk back, like a big, stupid kitten, golden eyes widening and softening. “I loved you.”

 

“That was a long time ago.”

 

“I remember you.” She said. “That has to count for something.”

 

“A lot of things have changed Jasper.”

 

“Have I?”

 

“No, you’re still impossible.”

 

Jasper grinned. “That’s right.”

 

She remembered looking into a plane of glass that turned reflections of Lapis Lazuli into Lapis Lazuli into Lapis Lazuli into Lapis Lazuli and so on and so forth until she wasn’t seeing herself anymore, but a clear, clean stretch of oblivion. How sterile, chaste, and cold it had been. Colder than the deepest oceans and the metallic chill of a lime green star ship. Jasper would not know a cold like that, and it made her frustrated. 

 

Lapis brushed her fingers against the big palm of the other woman. Mustering up a deep sigh, she closed her eyes and shrugged away from Jasper.

 

“It’s been a long day,” she said, rubbing her forearm with her hand. “Everything that’s happened since I escaped- I- I need _ time _ , Jasper.”

 

“You had time,” Jasper said. “You had all the time in the world, but now you have to live in the present.”

 

And with her rough paws, Jasper dragged her forward by her shoulders. Lapis’s breath hitched in her throat when Jasper put her mouth on hers, the bigger woman’s lips working against her as she stood there, slack jawed and numb. She was so warm on her. The thrill of contact surged through her body from her lips down her spine. Even her toes curled against the cold floor.

 

Jasper seemed to purr. “What’s the matter, Lapis?” She asked, pulling away. “You want this, right?”

 

The sound of her hand hitting Jasper’s face surprised even Lapis Lazuli herself. It echoed throughout the break room. Jasper stood, doubled over from shock as she clutched her red cheek, cradling it in her hands.

 

“What. The. Fuck. Was. That.”

 

Lapis moved to back up, but the heel of her foot caught the solid wall behind her. She froze in place, hands held out in front of her to ward off the advances of the gem who was beginning to recollect herself.

 

Jasper snarled. She grabbed Lapis Lazuli by the collar of her dress, pulling her forward. As soon as Jasper latched onto her, Lapis went limp like a kitten in its mother’s mouth. She winced when Jasper squeezed her jaw in her hands, wrenching her face up so that she could look in Lapis’s blue eyes. 

 

“Do you know how long I waited for you?” Jasper asked, eyes burning. “I searched the entire mass of that useless, green pebble called Earth just to find you, and this- this is the thanks I get?”

 

Jasper threw Lapis away, causing the other girl to stumble against the wall of the ship. Before she could regain her footing, Jasper’s hand was on her wrist, wrenching it sharply to the side as she dragged her out of the room. Lapis put up no fight. She allowed the bigger gem to rough her up, stumbling along as Jasper led her down the stairs. 

 

She knew where they were headed even before the lights of the brigg turned on. 

 

Jasper swatted the button to deactivate the destabilizer shield in front of the nearest cell door. With a rough shove, she pushed Lapis Lazuli inside, watching with malice as the gem fell onto her bottom. 

 

“See Lapis,” Jasper said, cracking her knuckles. “The problem with people like you is that you do too much thinking and not enough acting. But if you need a little more private time to ruminate, by all means go ahead.” 

 

When Jasper closed the cell door, she nearly destroyed the wall panel that kept Lapis imprisoned. 

 

“You changed,” Jasper said, casting a final glance back in Lapis’s direction. With a hefty sigh, she turned away from her and started up the stairs. 

Lapis huddled into the corner. 

 

Walls. 

 

Walls all around her, green as the algae of the sea. They were much less disorienting than the confines of the mirror, but in the end, they were all the same. 

 

Almost too suddenly, Lapis had gone from freedom to imprisonment. In one instant, she felt the shackles of Jasper’s hands rag her down into the depths of the ocean. Now the surging pressure of the waves above her placed a choking grip on her lungs, squeezing out the air from her chest.

 

It helped to think in water metaphors when she was having a panic attack. 

 

Faintly, above the sound of her hysteria, Lapis Lazuli could hear the Peridot’s voice. She was hidden from view, but she likely stood on the steps that led out of the brigg.

 

“What do you mean you imprisoned our informant!” came the Peridot’s whine.

 

And then, Jasper’s low, gruff voice replied, “She is a traitor. She confessed to me that she had relations with the Crystal Gems. We’ll deal with her when we get back to Homeworld. For now try to relax.”

 

So this was the game she was playing. Lapis buried her head in her hands, pressing her face against the cool blue skin of her arms. Jasper had always been sensitive, at least, in her vague memories of the orange gem she had been. 

 

_ Jasper… _

 

She remembered a tall, head strong gem with a strong jaw and a hard exterior that could melt to softness when she brushed her hands across her shoulders. _ I love you _ . The words stung in the back of Lapis Lazuli’s throat, and she squeezed her arms tightly in her fist to make it go away. Why can’t it all  _ go away _ .

 

But there was no running from her scattered memories which haunted her in the prison cell. When Jasper and the Peridot left, when she was finally left alone, silence pervaded and the only sound that could be heard was Lapis’s labored breathing and a soft, sweet melody. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.


End file.
